Square Enix has announced a new initiative to develop a cloud gaming architecture called Project Flare. Ubisoft has been enlisted to partner in the project, which Square Enix purports to “revolutionize the way users will interact with content.”

Project Flare will enable cloud processing for animation, AI, and physics. Square Enix claims that the technology is both cost-efficient and scalable as the game images are streamed like video.

This sounds similar to OnLive’s method of delivering game experiences. In that scenario, the content is run from the server and streamed to the screen, whether that’s a computer or mobile device.

Ubisoft will be leveraging its “Arcus” technology, which also utilizes the cloud to deliver gaming experiences. The pair are currently seeking additional partners and developers. This is the second major initiative Square Enix has announced in a month. The first was "Collective," a crowdfunding platform.

Our TakeI’m not sold on cloud-based gaming. My experiences with OnLive evidenced input lag and variable visual fidelity. If Sony’s Gaikai service or Square Enix’s Project Flare can evidence a gaming environment that offers negligible input lag and consistent image quality, I’m more than willing to give it a try. So far though, there isn’t evidence of such a method working.

You know.... it's really pathetic when we live in a day and age where RAM is DIRT cheap... but publishers constantly try to shove this cloud computing crap down our throats because they want to implement an always online service on our games... Seriously, just make games... This is really not necessary.

The only way I see games being played entirely through the internet is if:
A city has a 1GB/s internal internet speed
Has a server center located in the city
For single player games, like what SE produces, this would be a viable strategy but for multiplayer games there would be too much lag or you could only play with others in your city. If successful it would be great for massive cities, and would benefit gaming as a whole, as more money would go to developers and it would cut out the middle men. For small cities unable to afford server centers, though...

i fear most ppl wont have net thats good enough for the cloud stuff still for a while i tried gaikai demos for games on screwattack.com before sony bought gaikai , couldn't run them cause net and i had better net in germany than i do here

Sorry Square Enix, but cloud gaming is just not feasible yet. Internet speeds are just not up to par. Not only that but this just an attempt at DRM. I won't support a game that lets me play game when it decides I can.

At first I really liked the idea behind OnLive since it allowed me to play newer games on my older laptop. But OnLive definitely had its flaws...Since it was cloud-based, you had to always be connected to the internet no matter what game you were playing and if you paused a game and left it idle for too long (I think the limit was like 15 minutes or so) the game would automatically boot you back out to the OnLive dashboard.

Also there was the fact that online multiplayer was restricted to just the OnLive community which wasn't nearly as robust as say the Xbox Live or Steam communities which meant that the online multiplayer portion of many games were either ghost towns or had maybe a small handful of players.

If Square Enix and Ubisoft can make it work then more power to them but I'm not holding my breath...